Completed Honey-Roasted Hazelnuts

[Devi]

Ronan's Smithy - Winter 1, 514 AV

Devi attempted the overly long and complicated phrase again. Tukant was a difficult language, full of wordy descriptions and complicated rules about the precise use and placement of words. She was determined however. Challenges had never fazed her before and they wouldn’t begin to now. She finished the phrase with a flourish that nonetheless came out as more of a question.

The dark-skinned Akalak sitting across from her tipped his head back in laughter.

“You sound like you are asking to obtain a cat!” He told her between breaths.

She slid further down her makeshift chair until she was sitting completely on the floor, groaning in frustration as she did so. Ronan was working close by but paused to chuckle at her.

“What were you supposed to be saying?”

“Not that.” She pouted at him. Turning back to her temporary instructor she sighed and addressed him in Common. “Where did I go wrong this time?”

He explained further, running into a complex explanation of how her using a particular word at that particular point in the sentence had changed the meaning of it completely. At the end he looked at her as if her error should now be completely clarified and they should be chuckling over how she could possibly have confused the words in the first place. Apparently the look in her eyes did not portray this as the man started laughing again.

“Why do you learn it if it is such trouble to you?” He asked, a smile still in his eyes.

Ronan snorted and answered before she could. “You just answered your own question my friend. She enjoys it because it’s such trouble for her.”

The man’s grin widened but before she could make another attempt at the phrase Ronan lay down his tools and began cleaning himself up. “Now stop harassing my customers and help me clean up.”

Devi scrambled up from her position on the floor, stretched and then dusted herself down. As soon as Ronan had cleaned the worst of the day’s grime from his face and hands they headed out onto the streets together, the cold of winter clear in the bite of the air. Devi shuffled deeper into her scarf and coat, eyeing the outside world suspiciously. Ronan shook his head at her, smiling widely.

“Devi you look as though the dreaded monster of cold is looming just around the corner. It’s day one of Winter, not exactly the weather for snow and ice yet.”

“It may not be snowing yet but it’s cold enough for it. Ugh. Just look at the colour of the sky!” Her voice came out muffled with her scarf completely covering the lower half of her face. She turned her eyes calculatingly towards Ronan.

“You know what always cheers me up when it’s cold?”

“Something you shouldn’t be discussing with your brother?” He replied without hesitation.

She punched him in the arm. “Ew. No.”

“Pretending that it’s not cold? Nothing?!” He sidestepped her further attempts to swipe at him.

“What can you smell genius? Aside from the delightful fragrance of 200,000 closely packed people…”

She knew the moment that the smell registered in Ronan’s head from his expression. He was still smiling but his lips pursed in protest.

“Come oooonnnn Ronan, it’s the only good thing about Winter!”

“Unlike some I have a wife cooking me a lovely dinner at home. You should try it sometime.”

“In this scenario I am the wife cooking dinner at home. Do you really see me doing that? Do you really think my attempting to cook would result in anything but tears all round?” Ronan smiled but didn't respond. She pressed on with her argument. "It's a tradition. We have to. Besides you have the appetite of a horse, even if you ate two portions to yourself you wouldn't be full!"

Devi timed it perfectly, the cart coming into full view as they passed by an evening crowd. She watched as the resolve wavered on Ronan's face and their pace gradually slowed. Finally, when his stomach growled he rolled his eyes and sighed. Before long they were sat on a couple of crates by the side of the road, munching their way through equal portions of roasted hazlenuts dipped in honey. She had absolutely no regrets about the manipulation.

[Devi]

"You know you'll get the blame for this when I'm late back."

Devi snorted, talking past a mouthful of hazelnut and honey. "I always get the blame when you're late back, justified or not." She shrugged, "I may as well make it worth my while."

They sat and ate, the treat warming their hands slightly against the bitter air and just watched the world go by. Even in the dusky evening people of all shapes and sizes hurried past. Everyone always had somewhere to be and right now that was home where, for most at least, a warm hearth waited. Devi felt nostalgia tugging at the corners of her mind, memories of her and Ronan sitting and doing exactly what they were now in years past.

They paused occasionally to point out someone particularly unusual, making guesses as to where the person worked or where they were headed. Devi found herself growing gloomier along with the fading light however. Her mood spiralled deeper and deeper as thoughts that had been jabbing at her all day finally began to settle. Ronan noticed the change and softly jostled her with his shoulder.

"Spill it, mini-medic, preferably before my rear freezes to this crate."

She jostled him back, thinking about how best to put it into words.

"You remember a few years back, when Marianne got really sick?" She began.

"How could I forget, I was scared stiff the whole time. Half our neighbourhood caught it in just a few weeks. It turned out ok though - you and Versin took care of everything."

"I know. I was just as scared you know. Broken legs, cuts, bruises. Gods, even childbirth! It's all messy, dangerous. That side of things has never bothered me though."

"It's why Versin likes you so much. You share his creepy fascination with all things grim and gory."

She jostled him again, harder this time, but then continued. "Watching people get so weak from... nothing! It's frightening."

An unkempt man was ambling down the street opposite them, staggering through to the shelter of the covered walkways that led to the main bulk of apartments in the district. She pointed at him as he got further away.

"Say he gets sick. He goes home tonight, he's lucky and manages to avoid any beady-eyed knight on the lookout for drunken behaviour. He gets in, kisses his wife and kids goodnight and passes out. In the morning he feels terrible but hey, maybe he had a heavier night than he realised. Tiredness, vomiting - it's no excuse to be laying around in this city so he sucks it up and heads off to work.

He works a full day, still feels terrible. Now anyone who's willing to risk coming that close to being hauled off for judgement for drunkenness probably makes a habit out of it so he heads off to the tavern again to take the edge off and relax. After a while he feels worse, realises his ingenious plan isn't working and resigns himself to a long night's rest at home. He staggers on his way home, a little from the drink, a lot from a headache that's making his whole world sway like a rowboat.

The knight that's missed him on previous nights notices him this time and when he's unable to string two logical sentences together he's dragged off, no more questions asked."

Devi paused, her heartbeat picking up as her passions began to flare.

"It's maybe another day before someone pays enough attention to realise that he's not just suffering from the world's worst hangover, he's actually sick. By that point half the inmates have shared space with him as well as the knight, his wife and children, the men he works with and anyone he met at his favourite tavern.

People are packed in Syliras tighter than shipping crates at the docks. You can’t walk down the street without shouldering at least ten others on the way. If even one or two of the others is made sick by the drunk then they can go on to come into contact with just as many."

Ronan looked thoughtful, "You know the knights would probably say the moral of the story is to learn how harmful drunken behaviour is."

She rolled her eyes, "As would Versin, I know. If he hadn't been drunk in the first place then he would have recognised being sick for what it was. You know what though? Sometimes people are stupid. Instead of going to a healer or a doctor they go to work or try some family remedy that their grandmother passed on to them about...crushing beetles into paste in the middle of the night! Some can't afford to get any medical help so they just suffer through it.

Sometimes I just think... One long streak of bad luck and half the city could be infected before we get enough healers, doctors and apothecaries rallied to cope with everyone. Look me in the eye and tell me that's not frightening."

[Devi]

Ronan sighed and looked her dead in the eye, “That sounds pretty bad but it doesn’t frighten me. If I woke up every day fearing all the things that might happen then I’m pretty sure my head would explode.”

He stood and pulled her up with him. She weaved her arm through his as they started a slow walk towards his apartment. “You know I’m sure I’ll sleep safer at night knowing you’re predicting the doom of the entire city but I know you. At the end of the day most of the people in Syliras aren’t in your close little circle. You don’t care about numbers and nameless faces and you spend most days calling people fools. So who are you really thinking about?”

She sighed deeply, her mood darkening. “There’s a family towards the east of the district, the father got sick. I tried everything I could think of but he was so far gone by the time I got there that all I seemed to be doing, at least from the perspective of his wife, was make things worse. It was on my mind for days even after he passed so today I went back to see them. Turns out one of the kids is starting to show the same symptoms...but she won’t let me near them, she got a new ‘doctor’ in the house who’s decided that the only rational course is to ‘drain the impurities from the patient’s system’” She ran a finger along the inside of her wrist to illustrate just what that meant.

“She sounds scared.”

“She sounds like an idiot!” She was breathing deeply and concentrated on calming herself. She relaxed her muscles from top to bottom and steadied her breathing, regaining total control of her functions. When she spoke again she sounded much calmer.

“What bothers me is how little people know or care about how their own petching bodies work. The child couldn’t have been older than six and is probably going to bleed to death because his mother got suckered by a man with a surgeon’s kit.”

Ronan absorbed all of this and was silent for a few moments, deep in thought, before beginning again. “Devi you can’t bottle this much up every time you can’t figure something out or make the wrong decision. You help people. It’s not always going to go your way. This will happen again. You know that, you just feel it more acutely these days because there’s no one looking over your shoulder whilst you do it. The choices are yours now - you need to own them. If you don’t you’ll always be second guessing yourself and you’ll never take the risks you need to.”

They were quiet then as she thought about his words. He was right, as per usual. He had an uncanny ability to dig right to the root of the problem when it came to her. Doctoring on her own terms, rather than being apprentice to Versin, hadn't been as simple as she'd assumed. Death and pain had never bothered her before. To be precise, it still didn't now. What weighed on her mind these days was responsibility. That for every choice she made the consequences could affect the lives of a whole family, at the very least. Her thoughts no longer ended at the patient themselves but extended to everyone they were connected to. What she'd discovered is that most tended to be connected to a lot more people than she was.

Eventually, with Devi still brooding, they stopped outside Ronan's apartment, the sounds of a loud little girl and a scolding mother creeping out from behind the door.

“I’d better get inside, Mari’s been run off her feet lately. Actually I had been meaning to ask you to take a look at her. She says there’s nothing wrong but she’s been looking off all week...”

Devi smiled at the change of pace and kissed her brother on the cheek, “I know. She’ll be fine.”

He opened his mouth to protest but she waved a hand to dismiss it “Ronan she will be fine. You’ll see soon enough, trust me.” He frowned but on this at least she was confident and he let it drop. He would figure it out eventually, if Marianne didn’t tell him first. They said their goodbyes and she wandered off alone back to her own apartment, a mixture of feelings bubbling away in her own stomach. The room was chilly and she yawned as she lit the hearth and a couple of candles. Not much in the mood for a dinner of her own she pulled her mother’s journal from its resting place in the chest and lay back on her bed, flicking through its familiar pages absent-mindedly and eventually drifting into sleep.

[Devi]

Edge of the Maiden District - Winter 3, 514 AV

Pale, morning sunlight filtered down onto the exposed street at the edge of the Maiden district. Devi closed her eyes and let it seep into her skin, the heat of it barely permeating through Winter's chill. Her knees were pulled up close to her chest, wedging in the blank, leather-bound book she'd brought with her that morning.

She opened her eyes again, watching as a few bleary-eyed people made their way past, deep in their own thoughts. She was sat on a low-rising wall cut into the side of the street. Devi liked to come here whenever she needed a little space from the bustling innards of the apartments behind her. She had come out here early, to get a little time to herself before the rest of the city awoke and began going about their day. Judging by the light she knew she wouldn't have long so with a deep sigh she pulled down her knees and opened the book to it's first blank page. She slipped an ink stick from her pocket and carefully wrote out her full name on the first page, followed by 'Patient Records and Medical Journal'.

With that done she turned to the second page but couldn't quite bring herself to begin. A well of emotion arose once more in her gut and she clutched at it as nausea began to churn. Ronan was right; she needed a way to vent what was inside her so that she could continue to function without getting so distracted. The answer had come to her when she had awoken the previous day, her mother's journal lying open in front of her.

Books these days were a luxury. It wasn't really surprising considering that to many in Syliras, literacy was also a luxury. It had always been important to her, securing the one tenuous connection she had with her mother. The journal she had left had been intended to document all the herbalist had discovered, so that she might pass on that knowledge to others. Devi had come to realise that it had been as much about passing on who her mother had been as a person as recording factual information.

It may not have been important to anyone reading it simply to learn more about herbalism or local plant-life but it was important to her. It meant that the woman her mother had been would not simply fade out of existence, or at least, not yet. She would be remembered. Devi wanted that. She decided she would continue her mother's record of local plant-life, if she could. However she also purchased three, blank, new journals of her own. One for recording known illness with their known or suspected causes and remedies. One for noting philtering techniques and recipes, adding detail about known medicines as well as known poisons and their antidotes, if any such exist. The final one she held between her fingers.

People began trickling out of doorways and side-streets, filling the street up with a gentle din. She shook her head, calmed her breathing and began recording the factual information first.

Name: John Rorickson - Deceased, aged 34.

Devi filled out all the details she could recall about the man's situation and symptoms as well as what appeared to have eventually caused his death. She then went on to detail a more personalised journal entry, bleeding her frustration onto the page. Turning to the next page she continued without a break.

Name: Mathryn Rorickson - Deceased, aged 6.

Devi added the same details, or as much as she could considering she had not seen the symptoms worsening with her own eyes. She filled out the same journal entry afterwards, detailing what had happened and what she suspected had contributed to the young boy's death. In it she pledged not to carry guilt around in her pocket like a weight and instead to ensure his death made her better, more driven.

Easier said than done but it's a start.

As a final touch she took a page out of her mother's book, so to speak, and sketched what she remembered of the boy's face in charcoal. It was a rough likeness, she wasn't yet very good at getting the details right. By the time she finished the street around her was bustling; the city had come alive. She held the sketch at arm's length and decided it was as good as she could make it.

Packing up her things, she stretched her stiff limbs, eager to be walking again and feeling much lighter in her step. It was a small comfort to know that at the very least, even if her memories faded, even after she and the rest of her generation were gone from the world, Mathryn and his father were immortalised in one minute part of it, as was she.

OOCDevi purchased three blank books at a cost of 3 GM each or 9 GM total. The ink sticks/charcoal she already owned.

[Nivel]

Deviana : XP Award: 2 Observation 4 Socialization 2 Rhetoric 1 Linguistics 1 Writing 1 Organization 1 Drawing Lore: Ronan: The smart mouthed brother Tokant is a difficult language How to ask for a cat in Tukant Hazelnuts and honey, the best distraction Siliras is the prefect breading ground for Disease Ronan's advice Using writing and sketching as theropy Notes: Good Job, I really need to try honey roasted hazelnuts now. Additional Comments: If you have any Questions or Concerns please message me.